Enemy Identification Quotes



The military security people were so used to ferreting out communists in the 1930s that they had a hard time adjusting to the fact that the security risks or people who might have German connections or backgrounds. Many immigrant scientists were recruited for work on the Manhattan project to build the atomic bomb and they only did security clearances. The military security people kept checking on any communist background they might have had as opposed to possible connections with fascist organizations. By the end of the war they had adjusted but then had to go back to looking for communists as the Cold War evolved.


The Pakistani Intelligence Service and the Pakistan Army were never under the control of the civilian government which wanted an alliance with the United States in the War on Terror. However, the Pakistani military and especially their intelligence service (ISI) wanted the support of Al Qaeda and the Muslim religious extremists in Pakistan in their endless crusade against India. The Afghanistan Taliban could not sustain their attacks if they were not given sanctuary, weapons, and supplies over the border in Pakistan, This was arranged and given the go ahead by the ISI. Holbrooke, with American responsibility for BOTH Afghanistan and Pakistan speculated that the war in Afghanistan would end if we attacked the Pakistani ISI and blocked their supply and sanctuary activities, hence the quotation. “The Wrong Enemy” was taken from this quote by Carlotta Gall in her book in the role of Pakistan in the Afghanistan War.